Yikes. Saw all the chatter on Reddit, and it was enough to get me out of bed lol. Talk about slipping a Big Detail in a Help Wanted Ad.

Not sure how I feel about it. The online co-op twin stick shooter fan in me is kind of brokenhearted Arrowhead’s leaving the genre.

Elswhere, an indie twin-stick that promised 6-player online co-op appears to have been shelved in favor of doing more of an RTS-squad game sequel to that dev’s first game instead (The Red Solstice). An Argentinian dev’s doing Trident’s Wake, an online twin-stick I have some high hopes for but I don’t have much hope they’ll have any of Arrowhead’s magic with the genre. So if Arrowhead’s bailing on the genre, I just don’t see much else on the horizon that really seems promising to me.

Key thing with me is just my defective biology so to speak – Killing Floor 2 and maybe Bethesda’s recent Doom are about the only first person shooters I can play without severe motion sickness. Even many 3rd person games give me that problem, most often the kind where your “3rd person view” is at a fixed, “close” zoom to the back of the character model. So physically I might not be up to playing Arrowhead’s next game at all.

All the MMORPGs I used to be addicted to were 3rd person games but you could zoom in/out from the character model as you saw fit. That would include City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Guild Wars 2, etc.

I did enjoy Mass Effect 3’s “horde” online co-op, but it was more like a sci-fi “Killing Floor” than anything else. Didn’t have objectives beyond survival.

EA-DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront some (which you could years ago had a terrific 2 player co-op mode with pretty simpliestic objectives. Alas, they didn’t see it as a primary mode for the game. I thought it was a missed opportunity. Maye whatever Arrowhead’s working on will be akin to that. Ironically that came out the same time as the PC version of Helldivers.

I’d assume if Arrowhead’s new game is going 3rd person, it’s going to be a more expensive game and have tougher system requirements – and who knows if a PC version’s even going to be part of it at all. Presumably it’s a much more expensive game to develop and it’s going to need to sell a heckuva lot more than Helldivers or Gauntlet did to earn its costs/keep.

Well, the secret project’s doled out details do seem to make it clear they are “leaving” the twin-stick overhead/isometric shooter genre in terms of the next game. And the secret project’s taking so many years and so many people and so much money (presumably), I can’t see the company reverting back to doing little isometric $20 twin stick shooters again in, say, 2023 or something.

So yeah I’m not really ecstatic that they’re “leaving the isometric/overhead twin stick shooter genre” in terms of the new project, though I don’t blame them for wanting to evolve, to not just repeat themselves and to “Go Big or Go Home.” I wouldn’t call it “upset” though. I get it.

I think in the end I was thrown off by the “Helldivers and Gauntlet teams join forces for the secret next game” concept some years ago when the new project was first talked about. Which led me to make assumptions what type of game that team combination would make. And usually my assumptions are wrong.

As far as what a 3rd person view does – I think Cusman pointed out elsewhere that it won’t have “squad screen lock” to keep players in proximity, and I would advise against most forms of handheld weapons friendly fire in that viewpoint cause it’d just be a nightmare. Friendly Fire from mass aerial attacks, artillery etc. would make sense imho in that viewpoint still - but without the situational awareness you get in isometric/top down view, I think it’s harder to communicate to the player in 3rd person/FPS that “oh I’m about to be obliterated by my pals’ attacks.” You could point big red 'warning rings" on the ground that denote a blast radius but that’s probably going to mess up the player’s HUD/screen view.

As far as encouraging players to keep proximity, that could maybe be done by having abilities that buff/protect other players, but only when in a certain radius, for example.

I was hoping for a better and bigger Helldivers or/and Magicka like game with new features.

The new secret project has the same Game Director as Helldivers and Magicka, so even while it will be different (like Helldivers is radically different from Magicka), I expect it will have game design / personality traits that I will end up appreciating and enjoying.

Magicka

Not shared-screen co-op (except for local co-op players supported)

Best played with Keyboard & Mouse

Twin-stick top-down game

Friendly Fire always on

Story / Campaign

Skill based Acton game

Helldivers

Shared-screen co-op for local and online players

Best played with Controller

Twin-stick top-down game

Friendly Fire always on

Endless campaign design

Skill based Action game

Secret Project

Not shared-screen co-op and only supports online co-op players

Controller / KNM support unknown

3rd person perspective (presume over-the shoulder camera)

Friendly Fire unknown

Campaign design unknown

Skill / Action or Loot / Stat unknown

For me, as long as it is Skill based gameplay, I expect to be on board Day 1 and long term beyond.

Big fan of the Steam controller but it does take a bit of getting used to. I use it for almost all my PC gaming and browsing.
Unfortunately though i just can not use it for Helldivers - too long using the DS4 controller on Playstation that nothing else feels right

It’s not like regular controller. You have to spend some time in settings and find your best bindings But it’s rewarding. Playing with Steam Controller is much more fun than with PS / Xbox controllers for me

As much as I am dissapointed that mostly all of Arrowheads previous projects are pretty much owned by other companies I am also really glad that they are capable of doing something outside of the box of their ‘usual style’ of games. I think theyre are really talented and have good rapport with their community. I cant wait to see them make the games of their dreams.